An integral part of many financial transactions involves purchase of goods and services by credit card or other electronic transfer of funds. Consumers use credit cards to purchase goods and services from merchants and service providers. Businesses and government agencies use electronic fund transfers to acquire goods and services and issue credit cards to employees as necessary to conduct business. Credit cards are a convenient, safe, effective, and integral part of the economy.
There are typically three financial institutions involved in credit card transactions: card association, issuing bank, and acquiring bank. Well known card associations operate under the names of Visa and MasterCard. The issuing bank issues a credit card to a cardholder. The credit card will include a credit line that will impose certain limits on the cardholder's ability to make purchases. The cardholder agrees to pay the amount due on the credit card statement, or minimum portion thereof with interest on the balance, to the issuing bank. The merchant has an account or relationship with the acquiring bank to initiate credit card transactions and ultimately receive payment for the transaction. The card association operates between the acquiring bank and issuing bank to coordinate and simplify the large number of transactions occurring on a daily basis.
A credit card transaction usually starts at the point of sale where the cardholder has selected merchandise or service which he or she wishes to purchase. The merchant or service provider enters the credit card number by swiping the card through a terminal to read information stored on the magnetic strip or enters the credit card number directly into the terminal keypad. The terminal is connected to a communication network which electronically links the merchant to the acquiring bank or processing center. The acquiring bank is electronically linked to the card association and the card association is electronically linked to the issuing bank.
Most credit card transactions are a two-part process. In the first part, while the cardholder is interacting with the merchant at the point of sale, a purchase authorization request is forwarded via an electronic communication network through the acquiring bank and card association to the issuing bank. The purchase authorization includes the merchant identification, amount of the purchase, and cardholder information. The cardholder information may include name, address, primary account number, PIN number, fraud protection data, etc. The purchase authorization checks with the issuing bank to see that the cardholder is in good-standing with the bank, that the purchase is within his or her approved credit limit, and that there are no other irregularities. The issuing bank approves the transaction for the requested amount and routes the approval back through the card association and acquiring bank to the merchant. Even though no money changes hands, the cardholder and merchant complete their interaction. The cardholder leaves the store with the merchandise in hand and the merchant receives assurance that the money will be paid.
In the second part of the process, an aggregation of the individual purchase authorizations is processed through the credit card system to fund authorized transactions in a process known as clearing and settlement. During clearing and settlement, monies are transferred between accounts to complete specific pre-approved transactions. Transferring money, sometimes in different currencies, can be a time consuming, expensive, and error prone process. The aggregation of purchases and payment of net proceeds to the parties during clearing and settlement is a more efficient and cost effective alternative to exchanging money during each transaction. Clearing and settlement may occur at the end of the day, or at regular intervals during the day, or every few days depending on the volume of transactions and needs of the parties. However, the acquiring and issuing banks often do not have the resolution of the individual transactions to resolve discrepancies when reconciling the aggregation of transactions. If unable to balance the clearing and settlement, the banks are often forced to absorb the discrepancies based on the allocation of risk and may end up loosing money on certain transactions as part of the cost of doing business.
A principal function of the card association is to act as a funding clearing house for the clearing and settlement process. An issuing bank may need to pay monies to a large number of acquiring banks and an acquiring bank may expect to receiving monies from a large number of issuing banks. By operating through the card association, the issuing bank makes one wire transfer to the card association to make payments to specific acquiring banks. Likewise, the acquiring bank receives one wire transfer from the card association to settle transactions for specific issuing banks. The card association receives funds and allocates funds to its individual members in order to clear and settle pending and approved credit card transactions.
If the acquiring bank and issuing bank are based in different countries and operate with different native currencies, then the transfer of funds often requires one or more currency conversions. The acquiring bank generally leaves the currency conversions to the card association but in doing so the acquiring bank looses control and any benefit the conversion might yield to itself and to its customer, the merchant. In the present competitive marketplace, giving up control of currency conversions involved in credit card transactions can be harmful to one's market share and profit margins. The customers of the acquiring bank (merchants) will demand the best rates and service or they will switch to someone who can deliver.
In actual business practice, there can be variations and exceptions to the above described process. For example, the acquiring bank and the issuing bank may be one in the same and card association may be left out of the transaction processes. Moreover, the acquiring bank and issuing bank often contract out one or more of the above support functions to third party processors or service providers. The processors operate and function on behalf of the bank to complete the transaction for the merchant and cardholder. The third party processors bring hardware and software expertise that can help the acquiring bank and issuing bank operate more efficiently, with lower costs, and fewer errors.